Nursery admissions: More lists, more struggles!

And if your child does not fall in categories like sibling, alumni, girl child, management or EWS quota, the chances of getting admission this year become even more bleak.

With many schools having now released their lists for pre-school admission, it appears that there is very little room for the kids belonging to the general category.

Many parents, whose wards have failed to get through in the schools they have applied for, allege that the points system developed by the schools have come in their way.

The results announced by schools so far, the parents say, give the impression that admission is a prerogative of those who have a sibling in the school or those who fulfill the criteria of alumni.

"I had applied in 22 schools in south Delhi, but couldn`t manage to get even in one," Rahul Dhar, a disgruntled parent, writes on admissionsnursery.com, an online parents forum.

"Does this mean, my child lost one year? Where should I go" he asks.

Dr Supradip, a scientist who had applied in 10 schools for his son`s admission this year, writes: "Nothing left to share except a big sorry figure... Not a single school offered my son for nursery admission.

"My son did not get selected because he is my first child and I am not alumni of any school of Delhi. It`s shame from our side that we could not provide good school for our future citizens."

Founder of the forum Sumit Vohra told a news agency, "It`s not about one or two, hundreds of parents feel dejected for failing to get their wards admission.

"And the reason behind this problem is the flawed and arbitrary points-system devised by schools themselves this time."

The Directorate of Education (DoE) has allowed schools this year to frame their own selection criteria based on "just and rationale" means. As per DoE rules, the schools have to keep aside 25 percent of the seats for students belonging to economically weaker section (EWS).

But for the rest 75 percent of seats, schools adopted a points system which parents and experts say is arbitrary in nature. And most of the schools have reserved 50 percent of the seats meant for general category for sibling or alumni.

And the results announced by schools showed that there is hardly anyone has been selected without having points under these two categories.

For example, all the 77 candidates selected by a reputed school in Vasant Vihar have secured points either under the sibling or alumni category. Similarly, 54 of the total 56 shortlisted candidates at a school in East of Kailash are qualified under these two categories.

This apart, many schools have given up to 10 points for first girl child, which resulted in a clean sweep by girls in the general category in several top institutions.

In a reputed school in Dwaraka, for instance, all the 24 seats under general category went to girls, while only 24 boys managed to get through among a total of 245 seats in another school in that locality.

Parents level this as "gender discrimination" and it`s because of illogical points distribution by schools.

"I have two daughters. But still I feel boys and girls should get equal points and it should be a level-playing field for all," says Vohra.

Ashok Agarwal, founder of NGO Social Jurist, blamed the government for this crisis. "When you allow them (schools) to do whatever they like, the consequences will always be like this," he says.

However, Ashok Ganguly, former CBSE chairman who developed the 100-points system three years ago, describes this whole crisis as a "demand and supply disequilibrium".

"How could you manage this huge demand. There has to be some sort of crisis. But the best way is that to adopt an uniform selection criteria which will make parents know where they stand," he says.